86'd Again

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"You mean you're not here mandatory?" The guy beside me asked. I said, no I come from the neighborhood for Anger Management. Earlier he had said he plans to be a preacher, he carries a frayed Bible always in one hand. We are at a Saturday Barbecue at Hope Again.

My voice deepens: “You know what I discovered? Nothing satisfies you better than smashing plates on concrete.” He seems to be interested, so I keep talking: “You take old china plates, you know, cracked used pieces from a second hand store, stock up on them at yard sales.

“Then when you start getting angry, grab those plates, take ‘em outside, and smash them on something really hard. I mean it’s really gratifying. You hear this melodic crash and splinters of ceramic shoot out all over the place. There’s just something really satisfying about destroying something beautiful, I mean, when you're angry.”

The guy has his face forward, only lets his eyes swipe sideways at me. He says, uh, yeah? and I go on:

“So that's how I was dealing with my anger. But then I ran out of dishes.”

He sniff-laughs but I don't notice, as I'm laughing too hard at myself. I hear other laughter around me, don't know if it’s with me or just alongside me, it’s probably from the crowd forming across the yard, a lot of them people who used to be sitting here with me. At this table it’s down to me and this Kenyan guy who is very tall and skinny and has come to America to preach on the streets of Hollywood with that lovely accent.

He swallows, thinks, then figures out to say, “Well at least you have a sense of humor” and chuckles a bit.

Empowered, more inappropriate stuff flops out of my mouth, it never fails. Someone asks me what church I go to and I give a litany of all the churches I've tried to go to since 2004 when I landed at this Christian outreach place for homeless people on Sunset Boulevard and started trying to go to church.

The girl next to me looks like Laura Bush would have looked in her twenties, and when in conversation I mention the Gulf oil spill, she sighs and says, “Oh yes, I don't watch much news, but I did see pictures of all those dead birds,” then wrinkles her nose and I get the idea she thinks the news should have hidden the dead birds like BP asked them to. . . .

But we're still talking, and Young Laura Bush asks me about Churches and I say, well I've been bouncing around. At first I say the problem is there’s not enough little old ladies with white hair in any of the churches I go to, when what I really mean is the people with white hair in most churches are these little old ladies who I can’t relate to, even though I'm becoming a little old lady myself.

The Generation Gap Follows Baby Boomers into Old Age.

Actually the problem is most people in my generation are not Christians, the Jesus movement came “after” the hippies. There were a few late comer hippies who started the Jesus Freak groups in the midst of a dying Haight Ashbury in the seventies, and then moved out into communes in several northern California towns.

But face it, most of my peers, people from my generation in L.A., are atheists.

Feminists.

Bisexual, even.

I say to Laura B on my right, "Yeah it’s really unusual for someone in my age group to become a Christian," and no one argues with me on that one.

So I've opened the door to mention unmentionables in this crowd and I say, “Yeah I used to go to REDACTED Church, but things sort of fell apart there when people found out the pastor was gay.”

The women around me become silent, and I keep talking:

“I was like, you mean you couldn't tell?”

That got a little uncomfortable laugh. Then the woman with a post-grad education across from me spoke: “My momma told me when she was carrying me, she went to a gay church once.” She then mumbled a few words so we weren’t sure if her mom knew they were gay or just happened to go there, and continued: “She was six months pregnant, so they were all-“

I interrupt in one of my silly voices: “How did you do it?”

They're quiet so I think they want me to say more and add:

“Or better yet: It’s a miracle. It must be a miracle.”

After a beat, the educated woman across from me said, “Well Kay thanks for coming by, hope you enjoy the rest of your afternoon” silently adding:

“Elsewhere.”

And cracking more jokes, I exited.

I always do it, always end up walking home alone, because when I do finally find a way to be with people, I make the worst of the opportunity. I get so excited from months of isolation, and because I easily get people laughing. Then I want to push it farther so I do, I push it farther, and it ends up being even more funny, yes. But always people end up offended and I end up out the door.

I should just do standup comedy, but I'm an old lady.

Hmm, my daughter might just pick up that baton. She is studying improvisational comedy at a theater school up the street as we speak.

Just off Sunset Boulevard.
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POST POST

Wow, here is proof of how therapeutic it is to write. This morning's posted started out like this:

You Can’t Hide

I’m an old whore and it shows. Even though I'm living this godly life today- well more or less- the way I talk, the way words come out of my mouth, my walk, all of me betrays years of low life. I spent too many hours loud hollering in dark bars to speak today with eloquence, especially once I relax. My belly pours out and some wisecrack betrays me, and the church ladies turn their backs.
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Moderating the Moderating

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COMMENT POSTED ON LEE PODLES' Blog this AM
and copied and pasted here
in case it never gets published:

The Perp who got to me and my sister was in the BA database and then was removed when their policy changed. So I am living proof also that there are perps who are not in the database, even though they've been accused in public and in my cases, several times on my blog.
Our perp Thomas Barry Horne from Bartlett Illinois was removed because no "mainstream" news organization has named him as a perp. But most news orgs will not name him if his name is not on BA.
Problem overall and not just in clergy sex abuse cases is the whole world is run in a way to avoid lawsuits, avoiding lawsuits has become everyone's top priority.
Screwiest result is that "mainstream media' has more credibility than one of the victims blogging, because they have lawyers basically, no other reason.
Nothing is perfect in the USA today, so just keep going forward and don't get stuck, that's how I deal with all of this.
*******

Here is the original post, don't know if this comment will be approved or not:
http://www.podles.org/dialogue/bishopaccountability-mexico-and-murders-338.htm#comments

It's so hard not to sound paranoid when trying to describe how the Catholic Church beats down the crime victims of its pedophile epidemic. I mean, the public, even most of the advocates, only see the part that is meant to be seen. And your only way to explain it to a therapist or cop is "It's a conspiracy run out of The Vatican," which immediately categorizes you as an aluminum foil head reflector wearer.

The damage control on the issue of pedophiles in the Catholic Church, overseen and abetted by the Vatican, has been monumental, and some of it slickly under the radar. So anyone trying to point it out immediately sounds like a blithering paranoiac, just because it's the Vatican and the Pope and Church hierarchy who are the perpetrators.

Basically, no other news on this issue has gone out than what has gone out. If a story breaks in the mainstream, then it is fodder for both the nonprofits and the Church to acknowledge.

The end result is no accusations are recognized until they are so public they have to be recognized.

A bishop's testimony opens up and includes new facts AFTER evidence comes out proving those new facts. SNAP holds press conferences AFTER public docs are filed in lawsuits so AFTER the story has already broken. (My favorite were two recent SNAP press conferences to announce new lawsuits against an Archdiocese but Not Publicly Naming the Accused Perpetrator Priest.)

Even BishopAccountability, who appear to be real heroes in this movement, only documents charges and priests AFTER they are public information already in the public domain and documented.

The way things stand now, the Church AND the advocates never reveal more than is already revealed.

And I am living proof that there are stories being shot down and buried, voices being shut up and stifled, and obstruction of justice on several different layers in the pedophile epidemic in the Catholic Church.
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Trust Your Instincts, Not a Press Release

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The entire way that SNAP and the structure around it responded to its criticism here at city of angels was counter intuitive to how a legitimate support organization for crime victims would have responded.

If what I was reporting was incorrect, they would have communicated with me, explained to me where I was wrong.

Instead they made sure as few people heard what I had to say as possible.

They attacked me, shunned me, and locked me out, but they never just explained to me or anyone else where my observations were incorrect.
To me their very reaction to a survivor who used to be a member asking questions and pointing out things that are not right SHOWS what I reported was true. They were set up to create an image of support for survivors, while down here on the ground we were really being shut down and shut up.

So I'm off to the movies again
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It's Not that Victims of Pedophile Priests Can't Forgive Mahony

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It's that we are disgusted watching these guys get away with all these crimes. They never say more than they have to. The truth keeps changing. Oh an investigation found this? Okay, then now we'll admit to what was just discovered, but not any more than that. Here, here is a new press statement.

Those of us watching over a number of years have watched the truth change, the truth boundary line for Catholic hierarchy explaining the pedophile priest epidemic just moves around as different evidence comes out. Then the Cardinal stands up and makes a press statement admitting that one more bit of evidence is true after all, that their slimeball treatment of children was really worse than they admitted earlier, but it's no big deal because those sex crimes don't happen anymore.

And everyone just believes them.

After all they're wearing a collar. If Mahony had to be deposed on every single perpetrator priest in Los Angeles, the boundary line of how far the truth goes would just keep moving all over the place, and soon the cardinal would be shrugging off rapes of hundreds of children, with the same ease as he shrugs off the two boys who were just disposable "illegal immigrants" from his testimony released this week.

I CRY OUT FOR REPORTERS who ask questions, and don't just rely on press statements and releases for stories. Meanwhile, we all get what we get. Mushy leadership.

Criminals run everything in the USA now, why wouldn't they also run the Church?
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Sigh It is So Much Bigger than Any of Us can battle on our own, and there is No Network...

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People call one person getting his name in the news thousands of times great progress for survivors. Re Pew Research:

PHEW PEW
June 13th, 2010, by Jerry Berger, St. Louis Blogger: A new Pew Research Center study of clergy sex abuse media coverage lists our town’s David Clohessy, director of SNAP, as #6 on a list of “Abuse Scandal Lead Newsmakers.” Based on appearances in 52 mainstream news outlets, in a six-week period in April and March.... On the same day the study was released, SNAP’s founder, SLU-grad Barbara Blaine of ChiTown, was deemed “Most intriguing Person of the Day” on CNN’s Rick Sanchez show.

In reality, every time DC is quoted in the news it's one less survivor's story getting out. SNAP has stood in the way, as an obstruction, between survivors and the media, from the start. Almost every one of those thousands of DC quotes are inane and vetted at a corporate level (by whom?). Clohessy never says anything more than what has already been in the news, then gives it a nice "survivors'" touch like, "Keep Kids Safe." I mean, who can argue with that?

SNAP has been saying the same thing from the start, and the media has been writing it down. The result was to keep things insular. SNAP continues to call for the bishops and church hierarchy to change, as if they ever would. Still SNAP leaflets churches.

And the same two to three people are about the only voice the public has ever heard across the USA: David Clohessy and Barbara Blaine, and occasionally one or two more.

So to me, all this attention to two people who run a group that should be representing hundreds of thousands of crime victims shows the group was set up, from the start, to keep the true story of these crimes from surfacing. And they succeeded.

Basically, across the country, the crime victims went to the Church expecting help and got none. Then we went to SNAP expecting help and were told yes, you are getting help. But then we never saw it, but if we pointed that out we were called crazy. Then they continued to be quoted in the media about all the help they were giving.

None of the support is really there, it's all a hologram. Reach out for it and it disappears.

Now most North American victims are isolated, marginalized, out here trying to do things on our own with little or no resources, almost worse off than we were before we got our hopes up that as a group we would accomplish great things. The settlements put a big schism in the middle of us, creating two groups, the ones who got money and the rest of us.

President Obama, almost every state house, state supreme courts, news media, all of them got the wrong message, that this issue was about money. Across the country, the image of survivors is that we bankrupted the Church and it was all about lawsuits. And SNAP ran that message.

Yes, SNAP was about lawsuits, not all the victims wanted lawsuits. I never thought of a lawsuit until I'd been in SNAP for years and realized that's all that was ever goign to happen, then it was too late. But to the world, this whole thing was about suing the church.

And now, at least in L.A., SNAP is gone, now that their work is finished here. They're off to Europe, to do the great job there that they did here.

No. Clohessy's name in the news does not show what a great job he did, unless the job was to put all the focus in one small little area, until the story blew over. Keep most of the crimes from ever surfacing, and keep the ones that did surface as little exposed as possible. If that was the goal, then yes, SNAP deserves awards.

But the victims have nothing, got nothing, ended up with nothing but an odd shared sense of justice interruptus as we watch the news media, like blithering idiots, continue to copy down and repeat every thing SNAP says, and call it reporting.

I'm going to the movies.
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VIDEOS: The Date and Place I was Born

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Hot Night Life in Chi, 1948



Chicago was so proud and full of progress in 1948:

Music Break, from 1984, I Just Discovered This Song

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I keep playing this song over and over:



Talk, Talk: It's My Life
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